I visited the desolate Rio neighborhood being bulldozed for the Olympics

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL — At first, you don't see it. Hidden near the gargantuan Athletes Village, the gleaming media center, and under-construction Olympic stadiums is a ramshackle set of homes. Before the city bulldozed most of the neighborhood, known as Vila Autodromo, there were about 700 families living here.

Vila Autodromo, located behind a former racetrack ("autodromo" means "autodrome" in English) is in an unfortunate spot. The neighborhood happens to be in the exact place that Rio is eyeing for a road into the nearby Olympic Park.

According to Rio community reporting website RioOnWatch, over 67,000 people were evicted in the city between 2009 to 2013. Many of these evictions were under the guise of preparing for the Olympic games. A number of communities were reportedly evicted to make room for bus rapid transit (BRT) lines to transport people during the Olympics.

When I visited Vila Autodromo in early September, there were just 87 families left.

But this isn't a black-and-white story of the evil city versus the helpless residents. With some Vila Autodromo homeowners walking away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for leaving, it's much more complicated than that.

The disappearing act

These days, Vila Autodromo looks like a ghost town. Buildings are half torn down, and construction machinery lingers near the entrance to the neighborhood.

There are still remnants of a community down Vila Autodromo's dirt roads — families going in and out of their houses, small shops open for business — but there isn't much left. Electricity flickers on and off, water access comes and goes, and homes are destroyed as soon as people vacate them.

The evictions began a few years ago, when the city started approaching residents with offers of cash and free apartments in a nearby neighborhood called Parque Carioca. One person I spoke with says he made just $2,000 for giving up his home early on in the process. Those who waited have reaped much bigger rewards, with compensation reportedly ranging from $200,000 to $1 million.

These big paydays are at least partially the result of outside intervention from volunteers and lawyers, who have been working on behalf of residents and continually driving compensation up.

The residents who remain in Vila Autodromo fall into three camps: the people who are holding out for more money, those who want to stay no matter what, and the people who want to leave but for various reasons cannot.

Antonio Silva in front of his house. Ariel Schwartz/Tech Insider

Antonio Silva, a chipper man who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years, loves Vila Autodromo, but could be convinced to leave.

"I like the quality of life here. Many people who left regret it. They aren't happy," he says.

Part of the appeal of Vila Autodromo is living close to his brothers, who are in a nearby neighborhood. The city has asked him to negotiate on compensation for leaving, but he has so far refused.

One reason: Rio officials have reportedly talked about building new homes and revitalizing the parts of Vila Autodromo that don't need to be destroyed to make room for the Olympics road. Silva says he's holding out for that.

"I think they will do it, because they can't leave the place in this situation," he says.

Nonetheless, Silva has a price tag in mind for abandoning his home. "I would need at least $1 million to leave, no less."

Ariel Schwartz/Tech Insider

Dalva de Oliveiro, an elderly Vila Autodromo resident who lives with multiple generations of family, is one of the holdouts who won't leave for any price.

For de Oliveiro, there are many reasons to stay in Vila Autodromo, even as other residents leave in droves. Her grandson is disabled and attends a special school nearby. Meanwhile, her son-in-law, who lives upstairs from de Oliveiro along with her daughter and grandson, works as a physical therapist just half an hour away (it can take hours to get from one end of the city to the other, so this is a bigger deal than it sounds).

She's wistful for the Vila Autodromo of years past — a quiet village with a supermarket, bank, school, and other basic amenities that are now gone. It was always poor, certainly, but was never crawling with drug dealers like other impoverished parts of Rio. It was safe.

"Everybody knows I don't want to leave here," she says. "I don't want the money. It doesn't matter what they offer me. I don't even know what I'd buy with the money."

Maria Docarmo in her convenience store, which doubles as her home. Ariel Schwartz/Tech Insider

Then there are the people like Maria Docarmo, a widow who owns a convenience store in Vila Autodromo. Her shop is one of the last remaining stores in the neighborhood, but she'd love nothing more than to leave.

"Everybody left and the electricity keeps going out. I can't live in this way," she says. "Now because it's so empty, there are dangerous people hiding in the community. It's a kind of no-man's-land."

Since competing shops have shut down, she at least still has customers.

But Docarmo — who has watched her son and daughter die in the house and considers the place a bad omen — has no choice but to stay put. She shares a building with her upstairs neighbor, and according to Docarmo, he refuses to take money in exchange for ditching his home.

As long as he stays, she claims, the city won't pay for Docarmo to leave. But if the neighbor ever agrees to go, there is a $200,000 payday waiting for her.

"Nobody understands why he wants to live here. This isn't even a place anymore," she says. "This guy is crazy. We're being offered ten times the value of our homes."

'They never listen to poor people'

Altair Antunes Guimarães is sick of evictions. The president of the Vila Autodromo community association, he's been evicted multiple times by the city throughout the years to make room for infrastructure improvements (including, in one instance, yet another road).

"I live in a wonderful city, but for who is this wonderful city?," he wonders, a touch of sadness in his voice. "They can't just do whatever they want. We are part of the city. In Rio, they never listen to poor people."

Guimarães, a 58-year-old built like a bulldog, is more passionate about Vila Autodromo than most. For 20 years, he's fought for residents' rights to keep land in the neighborhood, where most people have 99-year leases for their properties.

Altair Antunes Guimarães. Ariel Schwartz/Tech Insider

"I'm frustrated, because most of the people I fight for have left for the money. They are winning with the money," he says. But, he admits, who can really blame the deserters? In a place where people make $400 a month if they're lucky, a big payday means a lot.

Rio de Janeiro (and Brazil as a whole) has what the Financial Times calls "chronic infrastructure bottlenecks." There simply aren't enough paved roads to deal with the ever-growing traffic that the city faces. New roads, like the one going through Vila Autodromo, ameliorate the problem.

But Guimarães suspects that the real reason for the evictions goes much deeper than making room for a road.

Once the Olympics are over, the infrastructure surrounding Vila Autodromo will be converted into commercial developments. The buildings in the Athletes Village, for example, will turn into luxury housing. Having a ramshackle community like Vila Autodromo nearby wouldn't do much for home values.

"They're sending us out to bring in other people with money," he says.

Ariel Schwartz/Tech Insider

At this point, there's little that can be done to save Vila Autodromo. But activists haven't given up.

"Vila Autodromo is a symbol of evictions in Rio. If we get a fair deal for the people who stay there, it will serve other communities fighting evictions," says Larissa Lacerda, an urban planning graduate student who is part of the activist group Comitê Popular da Copa e Olimpíadas do Rio de Janeiro. "Even if there's only one person left, we're there to fight for them."

Whatever the real reasons behind the evictions, it's mostly irrelevant to the families left in Vila Autodromo. When the spectators and athletes pour into Rio next summer, their homes will likely be rubble — or at least, surrounded only by the memories of former neighbors.